Box office fizzles and burns on Fourth

Broadway Grosses

NEW YORK — The usual Fourth of July slowdown coupled with the recent post-Tony closings of three productions helped contribute to the steepest July Fourth dip at the Broadway box office since 2004.

Cume for Week 6 (June 30-July 6) fell around $1.6 million to $18.8 million for 30 shows reporting (or $19.7 million including “Young Frankenstein” estimates). In 2004, the Main Stem’s tally fell by nearly $2 million to $14.7 million for 30 productions.

The star-spangled holiday rarely lights up the Rialto, which never seems to outpace fireworks as the frame’s main attraction.

In the past few years, however, the traditional stumble has proved less dramatic — and, in fact, the slowdown didn’t hit too hard for most individual productions currently running.

But since that softening was compounded by the loss of coin from three productions that closed June 29 — “Curtains,” “Top Girls” and “Sunday in the Park With George” — the week-to-week difference looks more extreme.